I don't actually have a one wellspring of inspiration. Though I'm most often inspired while reading - both fiction and nonfiction. I subscribe to National Geographic, Scientific American, Discover, and a slew of other magazines. And it is while reading articles for pleasure and interest that an interesting 'What if?' will pop into my head.

Coincidences were causes for investigation.

Research today has become more about seeing if something can be done versus judging if it should. It’s knowledge for the sake of knowledge, regardless of the impact on the world.

And once Genghis Khan breached those walls, he did as he had promised. He killed everyone in the city, over a hundred thousand people. But he didn’t stop there. It is said he slaughtered every beast of the field, too. It was those dark acts that earned the city the name it bears today.” The professor shuddered. “Shahr-e-Gholghola. The City of Screams.

Right now there are some fifteen thousand scientists authorized to work with deadly pathogens, but there are zero federal agencies charged with assessing the risks of all of these labs, let alone even keeping track of their number. As a consequence, there’ve been countless reports of mishandling of contagious pathogens, of vials gone missing, of poor records.

The enclosed space trapped her anxiety, amplifying her fear.

WHAT IS REALITY? It’s both the simplest question to answer – and the hardest. Over the ages, it has baffled both philosophers and physicists. In The Republic, Plato described the true world as nothing more than a flickering shadow on a cave wall. Oddly enough, millennia later, scientists have come full circle to a similar conclusion.

I’m pretty disciplined to keep the momentum of a story going by writing everyday, even if it’s only a couple paragraphs or a page or two.

Everyone was just trying to find a way to be happy, to feel fulfilled. The manner in which they searched for that state differed wildly, but the prize remained the same.

They wanted them to look like the Gods. God doesn’t look like this.